Revised Political Concept.

[GhengisFarbâ„¢]

So here's an idea since this would have to be a PTW game and not Civ3.

We have 6 human player civs on one central island. One city each and that's all there is on the island.

We have someone make the map so that we don't know what is out there but there are two AI civs and lots of islands.

No human team can attack another human team on the island. All comptetiton and warfare must take place among the colonies of the citystates. No individual forums EVERYTHING is out in the open.

No resources on the main island.

Any comments or ideas?

[Wittlich]

Talk about a VICIOUS game!

[Vlad Antlerkov]

I'd go ahead with it.

[GhengisFarbâ„¢]

Here's something along the lines of what I was thinking for the main island. Someone who doesn't plan on playing would have to create the outer islands for us to explore. And distrubute the resources etc.

Each human start is completely equal, 3 hills with gold, 6 coastals with fish, 11 floodplains with wheat. No chance of having a strategic resource as they already have bonus resources. The decisions your citystate makes determines you future.

Although each site has 3 goody huts it will pop when it founds its citystate so the outcome of those huts is a little random.

[Wittlich]

I must admit GF, I am intrigued.

[Togas]

This is an excellent idea

--Togas

[GhengisFarbâ„¢]

QUESTION:

Of the UU's, which should be given Hidden Nationality?

(ones in bold are the ones I think should NOT be given Hidden Nationality)

Jaguar Warrior
Bowman
Hoplite
Impi
Legionary
Immortals
War Chariot
Rider
Mounted Warrior
Musketeer
Samarai
War Elephant
Cossack
Panzer
Man of War - Think Frigate should be given Hidden Nationality instead
F-15
Keshnik
Conquistidor
Berserk
Sipahi
Gallic Swordsmen
Answar Warrior
Numidian Mercenary
Hwacha

I think Guerillas should have Hidden Nationality also.

[Aidun]

GF, personally, I like more the idea of a more natural map than this one. This one looks very artificial to me. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate your help very much, but I think this still needs some debate. The island needn't to be round and in needn't to be far away from the land. The main purpose of the Citystates Game, the original idea is victory over the AI through cooperation although there ar also other options.
We also don't need a limited piece of land: if we make settlers very expensive, in shields as well as in population cost, we needn't to have a limited land, the rules simply discourage teams to build large empires, so they won't occupy all the land. This counts for our civs as well as the AI civs. We can however give the AI players a good spot to start on so this limitation is compentated to them. Ghenghis' idea to give palaces the function of sewersystems and aquaducts also contributes to this concept: the teams have a strong central city and the other cities function more like villages. If we do this however, we should alter the governments and the amount of soldiers they support with certain levels of citydevelopment: town, city and metropolis.

Originally posted by Aidun
Citystates Game:

Characteristics:

1 Several human teams with very small countries: 1 to three cities each country, one or two would be best;

2 Eventually some AI players with large countries;

3 The human teams are not just randomly placed on the map, but they need to be placed together in order to survive against the AI and in order to stay extremely small. This can bedone by some objective person who can create a random map in the editor and put the human and AI civs on it.

4.1 Only through a solid teamwork and cooperation between the citystates the AI players can be defeated. In this option the citystates are free to decide to cooperate or compete with the others. Cooperation with one or more AI players is permitted.

4.2 OR: without AI players the citystates can compete with each other. One has to try to take out all the others. Citystates are free the choose if they cooperate or compete with the others. Vassalizing other citystates is permitted.

4.3 OR: An allied victory: during the game citystates form alliances with other citystates. The amount of alliances is free. Citystates are permitted to switch between alliances, it is up to the others to react on that or not. The strongest alliance wins.

5 Eventually we can play the game for a certain time period.

6 I think we'd better not use any other modes in addition to this mode, this is quite a challenge and not very easy due to the huge amount of cooperation, especially in the 4.1 option.

These are my thoughts please post all your ideas about the Citystates Game here.

Originally posted by Aidun
The reason why I have chosen for a citystates game is that in such a game the production capacity is very limited. I agree that it is part of the fun to build up many cities. Cities are the pride of any nation, not only in Civ. The challenge of citystates however is to be able to win with that extremely limited production capacity: that is the difference to the current PTW game.
In the PTW game the countries still have the ability to estabish huge empires, in the citysite game such is nearly impossible.
But guy's why just stick to one vanilla and one other flavour? Why don't we have three? In every game another challenge?

BTW, partly with the idea to play wars like the Pelopponesian war I started this.

(The Pelopponesian war was the war between the greek citystates of Sparta and Athens, Sparta was allied with Thebes and Athens had it's Attic Sea Alliance: the worlds's first naval alliance. Sparta won and Athens became a vassalstate until the Thebans opposed the Spartanian hegemony. Thebes declared war on Sparta and won due to renewed phalanx tactic. Later on Alexander the Great brought them all under Macedonian rule and so the age of the citystates ended.)

Aidun

Originally posted by Togas
This is an excellent idea. I think a couple of notes should be made early on so that this game can involve new people:

There should be no private boards. This would encourage cooperation and allow for people to join and observe at their leisure. It would make this a public game, allow for monthly news updates on our progress, and also fullfill the desire of new people to the game to get involved and learn about advanced civ management and tactics.

The map should have future expansion options -- I see our city states being unable to grow into larger units (except for conquest) without technology like electricity (to irrigate) and advances like harbors. Perhaps one state will have an abundance of luxuries while another will have none, but will have extra horses. Maybe a third is a small group of islands that will need mapmaking before it can send it's iron reserves to the other two. There are all sorts of possibilities ... I'd love to make the map, but if I did I couldn't play it. We'd probably see our city states settle in a "borg" fasion and have to cut away a lot of jungle to get room for a few more cities.

No Diplomatic Victory -- would be too easy, you have 2 free votes. Victory should be either conquest/domination or space race, and Space Race would require ONE of the states to pull it off ... since we couldn't combine our Space Ship parts. Conquest/domination would require ONE of the states to rule the world ... and we may just have to call the game when only our 3 city-states are left.

To keep from escaping our "city state" status too early, Our neighbors would be strong ancient age civs. No early America attack or "Case Pink" to get us out of our city state status. We'd have to tangle with Carthage, Greece, or Rome to pull it off.

Our civs should compliment each other -- and each should suit the theme of the team playing them. Perhaps give a Warmongering team the Monguls, and start them on very mountainous terrain. Give the DIA types the Indians and no horses. Give the other team the Ottomans. We'd have all of the traits covered.

--Togas

Originally posted by Aidun
I was even thinking of a mod to change the current civs easily to the ancient ones:
Athens, Sparta, Corinth, Argos, Thebes, Cartage, Phoenicians (Tyrus)
Minoans, Troyans, Rhodes, Ephesos, Miletos, Halicarnassos, Tarsus, Byzantium, were all citystates in the time before the Persians became a mighty empire and the first six citystates, the Minoans and Rhodes even until Alexander the Great conquered them one by one. We could play on the mediterainian map. Of course this is just a suggestion.
To keep the citystate status longer settlers could be made more difficult to produce: higher amount of shields needed and pop cost of 4 citizens.When that settler builds the city, only one of the colonists is left. Argumentation, when people colonize there are always colonists who die during the operation: a builiging accident, by disease, by accidents at sea, by accidents with rough animals, etc.

Aidun

Aidun

[GhengisFarbâ„¢]

Actually, this shouldn't be confused with your citystates concept although both ideas have many similiarities.

Your Citystates plan seems to be PTW only with a single citystate at the heart of each team.

My Political plan is that everyone starts out together and we go forth and compete to explore and colonize the world.

In the process we manipulate, undermine, sabotauge, and backstab each other's efforts while maintaining a friendly fasade.

I can set up the rules and central island but someone who will not play needs to create the rest of the map as we don't want the players to know what the world looks like.

I was thinking we could have many small and medium islands and at least two large continents with the AI civs on them and make a new unit "Barbarian Settler" that costs no pop, only 10 shields, and treats all terrain as roads to help the AI REX like teenage rabbits in heat.

[Aidun]

Ow, I didn't get that, sorry for this spam.

Aidun

[ManicStarSeed]

I will volenteer creating the rest of the world so I will not take part in the game play.

2 AI seems a little thin however...

Mss

[GhengisFarbâ„¢]

Reworked map so it doesn't seem as "artificial". You will need to copy the "Settler" folder in the units folder and rename the copy "Colony" in addition to renaming the ini file in it to "Colony"

The Iroquois and Aztecs are the AI and their settler cost 10 shields, no pop, and treats all terrain as roads. Our settler or "Colony" has standare cost of 30 shields, 2 pop, and movement of 1.

Send me your email and I will send the bic file. I would suggest, but you by no means have to do it, that there be a few islands connected by coastal to the main start island and then more islands and two continents with the AI connected by sea.

Then perhaps some more islands and smaller continents separated by ocean.

[FrustratedPoet]

What do you need 11 Flood Plains with Wheat for? That will mean a lot of wasted food, surely?

[GhengisFarbâ„¢]

Originally posted by FrustratedPoet
What do you need 11 Flood Plains with Wheat for? That will mean a lot of wasted food, surely?

I played a test game with the ring, (talk about a long game, no significant changes in units except for UUs that didn't require resources) and the Citystates grew up to size 35 etc fairly quickly.

[=OttomusCeasar=]

This sounds like it would be a blast.